Fic: Kiss a Boy in Tokyo Town, Percy Jackson [Part 3/7]
Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
Waking up is a slow process, something that involves a lot of contemplative stretching, twisting his feet up in the blanket that had been thrown over him and pulling his legs up close to his body. He presses himself further into the warm space he's made, and he blinks, so slowly that between them, the clock changes from 8:30 to 9:21, onwards and upwards. He finally does wake up sometime after ten, when, without thinking, Nico swings his legs off the sofa and straight into his ribs.
"Hey!" he protests, loudly, punching at Nico's quickly retreating shins.
"Sorry!" Nico blinks blearily down at him, where he lays in his nest of blankets and pillows next to the sofa. "Forgot you were there."
"Lame," grumbles Percy, trying to burrow his face in his pillow but knowing that he's awake for good this time. "You just like kicking a man while he's down."
"Yeah, that's me," comes the wry retort from above him.
When he sits up, pulling his shirt down where it's rucked up around his ribs and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Nico sits cross-legged on the cushions, watching him from underneath crooked lashes and mussed hair. He wets his lips unconsciously when Percy looks up at him, his expression expectant, and Percy feels his stomach drop.
"Nico, look --" he begins, but is cut off.
"Oh, no you don't." Percy's heart turns over, not unpleasantly, with the way Nico seems to be looming into him. "You weren't drunk. You don't get to use that excuse. I remember it. You remember it. You kissed me back."
And it's that -- the simple wonder in Nico's voice that does it for him. Percy springs to his feet, circles to the other side of the coffee table so that it's in between the two of them, like the distance and the object mean anything. "No, no," he goes, holding up his hands. "No, no, no. It doesn't -- it's not -- Nico, you don't -- I have a girlfriend."
"Who you haven't seen in over a year!" Nico exclaims, disbelieving, like he can't fathom that Percy could even bring this up. "How do you know she hasn't done the same?"
"What, kiss you?"
"No. Moved on."
"Because there's nothing to move on from, okay!" he flares heatedly. "I love her, and we're good for each other. So if you were expecting -- if you thought -- man, no. You were wrong. I'm sorry. You were wrong."
Nico shoots him a look that is bright, hot furious, but it shuts down instantly, turning into an unaffected shrug. "Whatever," he goes, standing abruptly and walking into the kitchen. Not sure what to do, Percy follows.
"Nico, hey --" he tries, tone softer and apologetic, but Nico just brushes him off with a brusque, "It's fine," and, "do you think he has anything in here suitable to drink before noon?" as he bends down to rummage through Chris's fridge.
Percy watches him move stacks of beer cans to the side and lifting up take-out cartons that haven't yet begin to spring saplings, feeling a little lost and unsure what to do about it. He's a man, and he knows part of Nico's discomfort is the idea that he's revealed something that Percy can use as leverage against him, too quick to assume that Percy felt the same way, whereas Percy isn't even sure he's standing on solid ground. What does Nico want from him? Well, okay, duh, but surely he can't assume...
Nico slams the fridge door shut just as Chris wanders in, his face swollen from sleep and his boxers just a shade too small to be wearing while company's over. "You don't have a single non-alcoholic thing in here," he snaps at him, and stalks out the door -- or as much as he can stalk, giving up finesse in putting his shoes on in his haste to get out of there, hopping on one foot -- leaving Chris to blink at Percy, completely bemused.
"What's up with him?"
He just found out that while he's rather fond of sticking his tongue down my throat, I'm not sure if I like him doing it, Percy thinks, but it's too early in the morning for Chris to deal with it, so he just shrugs and goes, "Who knows?"
Chris shrugs back, says, "So what do you want for breakfast? I make a mean omelette."
By "a mean omelette," he really means, "something so filled with butter and salt and fat it's a miracle your arteries don't give up and die gasping for mercy," which Percy thinks is absolutely brilliant.
"So you two going back to Tokyo today?"
Percy looks up, shrugs, says around a mouthful of egg, "Dunno. Is there anything to do around here?"
"Uhh, I dunno, is the ocean wet?"
And that's how Percy finds himself with a handful of crumpled maps and vague directions and a, see you in a couple hours, yeah?
He sits out on the front stoop, not quite sure how he got here, wishing he'd at least have gotten a chance to brush his teeth or something -- before remembering they hadn't really brought anything with them. He breathes carefully onto his hand and sniffs. Okay, not bad, but he could use some mint gum, at least. The maps are messily folded, creases bending in ways they probably hadn't originally come in, and he tucks them into his back pocket. Like most things in Japan, Hase town isn't all that big, Chris had said, just keep to the main streets and things will kind of appear.
He's watching a pair of sparrows coyly chase each other around a power line when Nico comes back, his expression no longer quite so murderous and a can of iced coffee in his hand. He blinks, surprised, when he notices Percy sitting there.
Percy leaps to his feet just as a little bit of cautious hope appears in Nico's eyes. "There you are!" he goes, choosing to ignore it. He grabs him by the wrist and pulls him around to a noise of consternation from Nico as coffee goes slopping over the sides of his can. "Come on, we're going sight-seeing!"
"Ugh, really? I was hoping we'd be going back. We didn't bring a change of clothes."
Percy levels a look at him. "Well, if you're going to be a girl about it..."
"Hell no!" Nico speeds up so they're walking side-by-side. "Isn't Chris coming with us?"
"He's got school today."
"... isn't it Saturday?"
"Yeah." Percy snorts, amused. "There's school on Saturday. You didn't know that?"
"Ugh," Nico wrinkles his nose. "No. I'm glad I don't go to school here."
He gets a shove to the shoulder for this. "Says the boy who has never gone to school."
"Exactly," Nico goes, haughty. "I'm too fond of my seven-day weekend, thank you very much."
And just like that, they're all right again. Not forgiven, not really, because that would mean admitting there's something they need to be forgiven for, but all right. They head off up the street -- Percy winds up holding Nico's coffee while the latter tries to make sense of the maps. When he complains for the third time about how everything's in unfamiliar characters, Percy rolls his eyes and flips the map over so the English is right-side up.
"... Right," goes Nico. "Whatever. Okay, so we're ... hey!" He brings the map close to his face. "Is that -- I didn't realize we were so close to Enoshima Island!"
"Uhh, okay?"
"Dude!" Nico flutters the map in front of his face enthusiastically. "Enoshima! Only one of the best entertainment spots outside of Tokyo! And it's bound to be even better now that the Eleventh Muse is enshrined there."
"The what now?"
"The Eleventh Muse. You know who I'm talking about." At Percy's blank look, Nico gives a disbelieving huff. "You fail at Greek heritage, amigo. Anyway. You've heard of the Ten Muses, right? Daughters of Zeus and the source of all divine inspiration for art and theater -- you've seen them on TV before, I'm sure. They're the Muppets. Right, see. There used to be eleven of them, only something tragic happened with the eleventh muse involving some drama with her virginity or something like that, and anyway, she died, and when the gods moved to Olympus, her tomb moved to Enoshima island. Wherever she's entombed is going to be the wellspring of every creative brainchild Japan's going to churn out for the next century."
"Right. And you want to check it out."
"Well. It's also a pretty kickass resort spot."
"Uh-huh. Right. Chris wants us to check out the Amida Buddha first, and that should just be right up this way somewhere. So we can head to whats-its-place after that."
"Yeah, sure. .... Although, what's the Amida Buddha?"
"Hell if I know. I've just heard people talk about it. Let's find it and find out."
Which is easier said than done. "Right up this way somewhere" turns out to be a warren of homes and businesses, and nothing much in the way of helpful landmarkers. And the worse part is, no matter where they turn, they always seem to be going uphill. Being invincible doesn't stop Percy from getting a stitch in his side, which he thinks is crap and kind of belays the point -- what use is he in a fight if he can't catch his breath? Or, really, what use is he at finding national landmarks if he's about ready to give up and sit down on the sidewalk?
"What's this place called again?" Nico wants to know, when they stop at a traffic light. He looks the wrong way for traffic, too, Percy notices with some amusement. They're in what seems to be the heart of town now -- open-air shops fan the streets on either side of them, selling all kinds of things from crackers and raw fish to touristy bobbleheads and discount bundles of postcards.
"Kotokuin Temple."
"We could ask someone for directions, you know," Nico points out, infuriatingly.
Percy scoffs. "I think we've covered every corner of Hase town where it isn't. We're bound to find it sooner than later."
"Right." Nico rolls his eyes. "Well, I'm going to go ask directions."
"From who?"
"That guy." Nico points -- across the street from them, watching a young girl play with a fake plastic cell phone with a faintly perplexed air, is a very strange-looking man; a horse's tail of hair is held in a loose bun at the nape of his neck, but the rest of his head is as shiny-bald as a hard-boiled egg, and he's wearing a plain-colored, simple robe. A summer yukata, Percy remembers belatedly. Only it looks more old-fashioned than even the oldest people Percy has seen wears.
It doesn't click until he sees the little girl walk right through the guy, like he wasn't even there. Alarmed, he goes, "He's dead!"
"Why yes, yes he is," says Nico, in a tone that broaches downright cheery -- and why wouldn't it, he thinks. To Nico, running into a dead person on the street must be like meeting up with an old childhood friend. "And he probably knows the area better than the dirt does, so I'm going to go ask him. You can just stand here and pretend you're not lost."
"Thank you, I'll do that," Percy's testosterone speaks for him.
Nico crosses the street to go talk to the guy, and Percy lets his eyes slide unfocused so that the Mist swirls in -- the man in the ancient outfit disappears, making it look like Nico's standing there conversing animatedly with the street lamp. Only the little girl with the plastic cell phone seems to notice, though; she peeks out at Nico from behind her mother's tailored pants, her mouth pursed into a curious 'o.'
"So?" he inquires when Nico returns. "How's Uncle Lester doing?"
"Fine. He's got a bad spot of being dead, but that clears up after awhile."
And it's a little sad, that Percy doesn't even blink at that. "Cool. Does he know where we're going?"
"Yup. You go that way, and turn left." He points -- uphill.
"Of course we do," says Percy, grim.
Fortunately, it becomes obvious almost immediately that they're doing something right -- the crowds on the streets become thicker the further they go, and twice they have to squeeze up onto the curb as an overlarge tour bus goes trundling on by.
"By the gods, look!" Nico grabs his arm abruptly, and points to where the street comes pretty much to a dead end, right in front of -- "Kotokuin temple! We've found it! Finally!"
He sets off at a run with a whoop, getting as far as the main gates before he notices that Percy isn't behind him. Frowning, he slows to a halt and turns around, trotting on back to him. "What --" he starts.
"Too -- much -- walking --" Percy pants. "I can't -- I don't think I'll be able to -- no, no, you go on." Very slowly and dramatically, he sinks to his knees, one hand clutching at his heart and the other one waving at Nico, who doesn't look concerned in the slightest, the heartless jerk. "No, go! Save yourself! Don't look back! I'll be -- I'll be --" With a wheeze, he rolls onto his side, and -- for theatrical affect -- sticks out his tongue and plays dead.
"You, are retarded," Nico informs him, and seizes handfuls of his shirt and pulls him back to his feet, laughingly dragging him over to the lines at the gates, where they get stuck behind a group of Japanese schoolchildren and their harried-looking teacher, who is trying to get them all through the gates with the minimal amount of bloodshed. They pay the entrance fee and go in.
The Amida Buddha, they find out, is the smaller of two identical statues; one here in the Kamakura district, and a larger one in Nara. Called the Kamakura Daitbutsu, it used to have its own temple built around it -- hence the lingering name, Kotokuin Temple -- before a tsunami washed it away sometime in the fifteenth century. Now it stands out in the open on a pedestal, and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, some who come just to say they've seen it, others who pray and meditate with it and buy overpriced lucky tokens from the visitor's center.
"You know, I have a pamphlet, too," Nico feels the need to remark after a minute or two of this. "And contrary to what you seem to believe, I can read it."
"I don't know what you mean," Percy says airily. The statue looms before them, just a man sitting with his legs crossed and his palms up, for all the world like he just fell asleep like that. He also has incredibly droopy earlobes, which amuses Percy far more than it should.
"Hey, you do want to check out what's inside?" He gestures to a sign that says they can tour the hollow inside of the Amida Buddha for just 20 yen.
Nico seems rather unimpressed. "See what's inside a great big, green statue?" he goes. "What could possibly be worth seeing inside a great, big green statue?"
"That's part of the mystery!" Percy needles him. "Come on, how many times are you going to get this chance?"
"A bell, apparently," Nico answers him fifteen minutes and 40 yen later. "That was exciting. I'm glad we came all this way for that."
They descend the shallow steps and turn around in order to get one last look at the Amida Buddha, a giant man who's been in lotus position, contemplating the inner workings of the universe, for the better half of a millennia.
Percy gives him a bemused look when he shivers, head craned back to study the weathered, green exterior of the statue. "Are you cold?"
Nico rolls his eyes, droll. "You're a big bag of hot air. So long as I stand next to you, I'll be fine."
Percy laughs at that, reaching out to shove at the side of Nico's head, making him stagger a little bit and shoot him a scowl that's already unravelling a little bit at the corners, fighting off a grin.
And that's when the Amida Buddha stands up.
| --- | --- |
He isn't sure what, exactly, the mortals see through the Mist, but the Japanese promptly do what they do best: they panic and storm for the exits in one great big, crowd-following herd. Percy snatches Nico by the scruff of his neck, yanking him back sharply to avoid getting them both trampled.
The Amida Buddha clambers to its feet with a noise worse than even the oldest, rustiest tractor being put into its gears. Everything creaks in an obnoxiously high squeal as it stretches its arms far over its head, mouth yawning wide. Then, self-consciously, it straightens its toga and re-centers its crooked hat. When it looks down, it heaves a great, gusty sigh, breathing out an overwhelming whiff of mildew.
It blinks its flat eyes. "Well, don't everybody all come say hi at once," it announces in a low, rumbling voice that reminds Percy a lot of Mufasa from the Lion King, glancing down at the courtyard, which is suddenly empty except for Percy and Nico.
Nico's jaw is hanging open, which is about as nearly as attractive as it sounds, and Percy lets go of his collar, stepping away. "Er," is pretty much all he can manage, but fortunately, the Amida Buddha doesn't seem to be expecting much.
"Aww, no, you're kidding me," it complains, just now catching a glimpse of his shoulders. It reaches up and tries to brush off the centuries of bird poop in great swipes of its BMW-sized hand. It sounds like the beating of a hollow gong. "That's disgusting. Can't a guy meditate in peace anymore?"
"Nnngr?" a very small someone says. It might have been him.
The statue turns its head slowly towards them, and -- as much as a statue can -- it brightens. "Oh! Half-bloods! Fantastic!" It gets down off its pedestal and plops down on the steps in a great whumph that makes the whole ground jump. It leans down towards them, propping its elbows up on its knees. "I haven't seen any of your lot for a long time, not since that bloody rotten storm blew me here, ages away from Europe. Tell me, where am I exactly?"
"35, 22 North. 139, 32 East," answers Percy promptly, and, realizing he sounded kind of like an automated teller machine, adds as respectfully as he can, "Sir."
The Buddha's eyes turn up at the corners. "A son of Poseidon, then? He was always the least favorite of my great-uncles. It was his stupid inability to control his temper that landed me here, you know."
At that, the earth lurched underneath their feet, this time feeling more like an actual earthquake instead of a massive, multi-ton statue jumping on it like a bed -- the stone walkway shatters like a field of ice. The Buddha scowls as Percy and Nico stagger and topple over, turning its head towards the sea. "Oh, go eat some coral, you great lump of a god!" it roars. "It's true and you know it!"
Turning back to face front, its face falls comically. "Blast, get a load of this," it stretches a leg out in front of it, hiking up the folds of its toga up high. Percy quickly averts his eyes somewhere up higher on the statue's body, and beside him and nowhere near as polite, Nico yelps and claps a hand over his eyes. It grabs hold of his thigh and gives it a shake. "That is truly horrific. Why didn't anyone tell me my thighs were getting that bad? This'll take forever to work off, I'm telling you."
"It's what you get for sitting in one position for several hundred years," mumbles Nico from behind the weave of his fingers.
Again, the Buddha's eyes crinkle up. "Have I really?" Distracted from whining about its muscle loss, it looks around, like it's never bothered to take in its surroundings before. "Oh, good, my shoes are still here," it remarks upon noticing the giant pair of sandals hanging up outside the visitor's center. "Although, what's the rest of this?"
"Well, you're kind of a famous landmark," Percy offers, still on his back on the ground. His senses are starting to piece themselves together again, since it doesn't seem like the Amida Buddha is in a rush to try and flatten them or feed them to its offspring or otherwise try and devour them like most monsters. "People come from all over the world to offer you prayers and to meditate with you."
"Do they really? How strange. All I did was sit down to think about what I how I was going to get back home. I don't think I'm in Caracass anymore, Toro." He rubs his belly contemplatively, and then frowns, poking at it harder in a distinctly puzzled way.
"Er, and they built a bell tower in your stomach."
"... Right," says the statue.
It has to pause and think about that one, which gives Percy enough of a reprieve to scramble to his feet, pulling Nico up with him. The other boy has taken on a deliberate, long-suffering silence, and when Percy arches a questioning brow at him, he gives him a look that plainly says, if you'd listened to me and we'd gone to Enoshima island today like I wanted to, we wouldn't be here right now, listening to the Amida Bhuddha complain about how fat its thighs have gotten. And then he wonders how he knew that that's what that look said.
"Young man," the Amida Buddha says suddenly, startling them. He points a thoughtful finger at Percy. "If I may ask, have you recently had a filling of some sort put into a hole in your tooth?"
There are days when Percy simply has to step back and admire how completely bizarre his life is, and discussing his cavities with a national landmark is one of those things. He nods.
"Ah. I thought so. I am made out of a material very similar to what's currently in your mouth. Sediment calls out to sediment, after all. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?" This is directed at Nico, whom, up until this moment, it didn't seem to have paid much mind to. "You're an earthmover, aren't you?"
Nico tries very, very hard to not look confused, and succeeds about as well as the New York Giants succeed at not sucking at football. "Umm. Hades is my dad, so yeah, I gues."
"Why is that, anyway?" Percy asks him, frowning. "I mean, my dad's the one they call Earthshaker. But I can't do any of the stuff you can."
This just earns him a shrug. "Dirt's just made up of a lot of dead stuff, all ground up real tiny. Nobody does dead better than me, so it's not that hard, really."
Somehow, even with blank oval eyes and earlobes that practically droop to its shoulders, the Amida Buddha manages to pull off a surprised expression quite convincingly. "You're really serious. You two don't know?"
"Don't know what?"
"What Poseidon and Hades can accomplish if they ever stopped being such colossal stubborn mules and learned to work together." It crosses its legs, leaning forward, managing to look like a four-year-old obsessed with an earthworm it's dug up in the rain. "Your powers are only a fraction of what theirs are, but even that much can pack a punch. A child that can control the seas and a child that can control the earth could move continents if given proper motivation. Why do you think so many devastating regional wars are caused by children of the Big Three? You know," it adds, more to itself than to them. "Someone should suggest to the three of them that they should make a pact never to have any more children with mortals. It just always ends up in disaster."
Percy exchanges a look with Nico, whose eyes have gone shuttered and distant with thought, looking at him like he's never really saw him before. Percy feels much the same way. Move continents? Him and Nico, who still looks ridiculously scrawny in his bomber jacket and whose ears stick out kind of funny? There was no way they could pool their powers together enough to move a pail of water down a hill, much less start a war.
It strikes him, abruptly. How different their friendship would be, if they had had grown up in the same time and met when they were younger, just two kids at a summer camp for demigods who almost die a lot. Would they have learned to work together in a world where Nico's sister hadn't died and they hadn't been thrown together in a competition over a prophecy they had no control over?
"What?" says Nico, eventually, when the look goes on for several beats longer than it should.
"Nothing," says Percy, feeling like he's been struck in the gut with something heavy. Could they have been like the demigod children of Poseidon and Hades that tore the world apart in WWII?
Did they really have that kind of power?
"Hello? Half-bloods?" The Amida Buddha reaches out, waving a hand roughly the size of a tractor in front of their faces. "Half-bloods! What century is this?"
| --- | --- |
By the time they get the faintly confused, thunder-thighed monolith sorted out, afternoon has worn on, settling with a tired color on the horizon. They leave him sitting on his pedestal, contemplating his new existence, chin propped up thoughtfully on its fist, and crossing under the temple gates, Nico jokes that it's probably going to get stuck like that for another half-millenia, a poop-streaked version of the Thinker.
The walk back through Hase town takes less time the second time around -- they know where they're going, and there are fewer people out and about, poking around in the tourist shops and waiting in line at the food stands.
Nico keeps up a constant stream of chatter the entire way: if the Buddha in Kamakura turned out to be a minor god who'd been washed up on another continent by accident, what about the bigger statue in Nara? Were there other gods who settled away from wherever Olympus was currently situated, and if so, how many, and did anyone wonder what their kids got up to, or if monsters went after them? And for that matter, if the Buddha was a Greek god, how many other major world religions had figureheads who turned out to be gods or half-bloods? Percy watches him as he walks and talks, the way he flings his hands around when he follows a particular tangent to the end of its line of thought, and wants to. He really wants to.
And no, he really doesn't know what he wants, exactly, but it can't be that hard to figure out.
He thinks, briefly, ever so briefly, of the look in Annabeth's eyes when she last saw him, outside the hospital, leaning against the taxicab with his hands fisted in his pockets, of her, whispering, wait for me, Seaweed Brain, okay?
And then it's gone, the memory worn through like rubber off the soles of his shoes, and he reaches out, fingers snagging on the cuff of Nico's jacket. Nico stops talking, giving him a quizzical look, and Percy reels him in, one step, two step, until he sees comprehension light his face up from the inside out.
"Hi," goes the son of Hades, smiling wide, the street lights above them casting haloes of light in his eyes.
"Hi," Percy replies, as Nico steps into him without hesitation.
"How are you?"
"Fine. You?" The last word falls away, forgotten, as Percy closes the distance and kisses him. It's different from the night before: they only spend a few minutes chastely touching mouths back and forth, remembering the feel of it, before opening up, tongues curling up into each other's with small, curious licks. Then Nico is flush against him, a long, sinewy streak of warmth and unshaven chin scratching against his skin, holding on to him like he's never wanted anything else.
The kiss goes on, and beside them in the window, miniature bobble-heads of the Amida Buddha nod at them contemplatively.
| --- | --- |
"Oh, thank the gods!" goes Chris when they finally get back to his place. He flings the door wide open, pushing his glasses further up onto the bridge of his nose, and at their identical blank expressions, makes a noise in his throat like he's thinking about strangling them with a guitar string and isn't entirely sure he won't be congratulated for it. "The Kamakura Daibutsu? It's all over the news -- everybody's panicking, wondering what in the name of holy Hades' socket wrenches went down, and I'm assuming it's all your fault, so please, pardon me for being glad to see you in one piece." He steps back into the house with a huff.
Still standing out on the stoop, they share a bemused glance. Percy has almost forgotten that the rest of the world would have something to say about the Amida Buddha just standing up and announcing it'd just been thinking about how to get home.
Somehow, it didn't seem like the most monumental thing that happened today.
"See if I ever ask you over again!" comes from inside the house, which they take as their invitation to come on in.
"Well," says the son of Demeter once he calms down and they explain the story to him. "Between the Mist and Hermes glossing over some of the finer points, they'll come up with some way of explaining it all away. Still, though, I wonder why today of all days, did it decide wake up." The look he gives them suggests he still thinks it's somehow all their fault.
Nico shrugs. "I don't know. It said something about Percy's cavity filling, but I don't think that's what actually triggered it."
Chris stares at them some more. How come you aren't dead? Surely there's some kind of natural law that prohibits one-celled organisms like you from surviving, he doesn't say, but his eyebrows telegraph the message anyway.
Percy excuses them at that point, saying they should really be heading back into the city ("Yes, please do that, before you have all the other national monuments in this area getting up to do the wave."), and Chris sends them off with a good-bye, his land line phone number, and -- in a way that would be strange if he wasn't the son of the harvest goddess -- a plant.
Nico gives it a strange look as they head back towards the train station, watching the sprout bob its head congenially with each step they take. "What are we going to do with that?" he asks, bewildered.
"I dunno," goes Percy, equally lost. "Try not to kill it?"
The one thing about heading back into the city at this time of day that's completely unavoidable is the crowds -- Percy had known this was going to be the case before they set out. It's tourist season in Hase, since the hydrangea at the Hase-Dera temple have just all burst into bloom ("which isn't all that great," Chris had told them with a moony, lovestruck expression that they hope they never see him wear again, "unless you like flowers.")
Nico tries to balk back when he sees just how many people are standing up on the train when it pulls in, but Percy laughs and gives him a solid push to the small of his back, saying come on, we can always fit more people in.
They get lucky, and enough people get off -- chattering excitedly back and forth about something Percy is pretty sure involves "Amida Buddha," but he could be wrong -- that they manage to squeeze themselves into a corner by the door, where they can prop themselves up against the handholds and the hull of the train instead of onto other people.
The train pulls out of the station, trundling with slow clack-a-clacks across the tracks, and the people do the proper Japanese thing -- they keep their eyes averted from those they're sharing very personal space with, preferring to lean onto their friends instead of strangers and hugging their belongings close to their chests.
Nico's gaze is directed somewhere over Percy's shoulders as the train rattles on, catching glimpses of the ocean through the gaps between the narrow buildings, flashing in brilliant, glittering blue until -- at last -- they pull away from the seaside and speed off towards Tokyo. Percy just continues to look at him, unabashed and maybe a little wondering -- Nico who is just that little bit taller than him is slumped back against the door, generously allowing him the illusion of height, and this close, Percy can see everything: Nico's olive skin stretched gaunt across his cheekbones, making him look like he's just come crawling out of a grave -- oh, wait -- and his eyes dark-rung and deep-sunk like a heroin addict's, and he can just imagine his mother flailing and demanding that they cook him something fattening. His body is thin, wiry, and deceptively strong underneath the bomber jacket, and it thrills at Percy, the idea that he could put his hands anywhere, and Nico might not even stop him.
Almost unbidden, his fingers find the slice of exposed skin between the hem of Nico's shirt and the place where his boxers are visible above his belt, and trail, feather-light, across it, from one hip bone to the other.
Nico's eyes flash to his, one eyebrow raised.
When Percy doesn't stop touching him, a disbelieving smile begins to curve across the bow of his mouth and then is gone, replaced by something focused and intent.
"You know," he murmurs lowly. "They always did tell me that I should beware of perverts on the train."
"You should," Percy agrees gravely. "You never know who is one and who isn't."
With a quiet huff of laughter, Nico tugs at him until they're resting against each other, Percy's fingers slipping to the small of his back, pinned between the hot weight of Nico's body and the metal of the door. Nico's gaze roves around the train car they're in, checking to see if anyone standing almost on top of them is looking in their direction, and when no one is, he turns his head to meet Percy's, giving him a fish's kiss, quick as winking.
And that shouldn't be enough to make joy burst, bright and white-hot, somewhere deep inside Percy where it's kept safe, but it is, it is, and he buries his face against Nico's shoulder, a plant in one arm and a loose-boned demigod in the other, and wonders just how long he can make this last.
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